first blog from uganda

09-11-06
Hello All,

I have safely arrived in Uganda…

There were a few exciting events that happened in my last week in Jo-burg that I didn’t have a chance to share with you. Friday was quite an exciting day for me in South Africa. At about 11am I left with Chris Townsend, who is a local parish priest and the director of communications for the South African Bishops Conference. He is a personal friend of Russell, one of the Jesuits who I was staying with and he spent 6 years working in Soweto.
Chris offered and took me on a tour of this township. While Soweto may sound to our western ears to be an African name, but really it is an acrynom for South West Township. People were forcibly removed from a place called sophiatown to here in the 60’s. In some respects these townships are chillingly planned. There are practical aspects to them. They are placed close to where the mining facilities are. This ensures that workers are close to the mines. This is of no help to anyone who actually works in the city though and indeed, it makes it quite difficult to get from Soweto to the city. These townships were placed right next to the old mine dumps and even the new ones. This is now causing untold health problems amongst people who breathe in the fine dust left over from the mining.
Soweto is also the place where the first uprisings occur. Unfortunatley we did not have time to visit the hector Peterson memorial. In 1976 students decided to march in protest of the forced learning of Afrikaans, which was imposed by the very strict nationialist party.
Well, it was one thing to read about all this during the apartheid museum and a whole other issue to see in person the physical effects of this policy. We visited regina mundi catholic church, which hosted many of the meetings in 1976 and also many of the funerals. There were bullet holes inside the church!! When the police raided the church to break up the meetings they fired guns with live ammumition inside the church! I could hardly believe it.

Ordination

Friday, Sept 8th seemed to just sneak up on me as the ordination of my friends bruce and shaun. It was a great ceremony. I was creating the DVD for the ordination so I wasn’t able to enjoy the first half as much as I might have, but I was happy that I could make my own contribution to it. It certainly became a hectic week as time led up to the ordination. The following day all the local Jesuits and bruce and shauns family went out for dinner. It was a fitting way to end my time in South Africa. Good liturgy and good dinner!



Uganda

Flying in over Uganda, there was nothing that excited me more than seeing green! The land was covered with green grass and sugar cane plants. South Africa was certainly beautiful, but in many respects it was a dry sort of beauty. I have been here now for 2 days. Waking up this morning in Uganda was quite a thing. It is really unbelievable…. Well, that would be romanticizing my first morning here. I can’t exactly say that I got great rest. There are certain things that I will have to adjust to. First would be falling asleep to the sound of pigs squeeling. The sisters who I am staying with have a bit of a small scale farm. When I first heard the pigs I could have sworn that a swarm of bats had descended upon the house. I also will have to adjust to the rooster that decided to serve as a personal alarm clock for me. Well, that is being a tad dramatic, but it is indeed true that this cock crows and 3 am, 5 am, 6 am and 7 am and then irregularly throughout the day. Given however that light is limited here, I probably won’t have any problems going to bed earlier. In fact, I am learning that it is important that I carry a flashlight with me whenever I leave the house. There aren’t street lamps around here and Uganda is prone to “power restriction.” That is to say, there is not enough power for the whole country, so if you have electricity during the day, it is unlikely that you will have it at night. Fortunatly many of the buildings around here store solar power that they can use for lights when there is a power outage. I am also lucky to have my mac with its long life battery as that is what I am using as I type here. Welll…. Let me update you on my general situation.
I am staying in Nsambya, which is located outside of Kampala. It is quite interesting because there are at least 5 Catholic residences of sorts located right here. The Jesuits are just down the road from me. Charles Kizza, who is a Jesuit brother of my Ugandan friend from Berkeley has been most helpful in helping me get situated.
The white fathers and the mill hill missionaries are on the same road as well. I still have to make my rounds to meet these people.

I have already become connected with a youth program here called undugu family, which serves to create local communities praying and dancing and working towards peace and unity. This is run by a Jesuit named Stephen from Tanzania. I have already become close to his main media guy, Charles Lenjo. A local “free range” pastor who preaches interdenominationally met me on the first day and has taken an interest in my research. I will have a chance to visit many of his ministries and see the various areas of his work. This will be particularly interesting since I will be able to look at how various different denominations address liturgical incultration

PS other good news- I have been on my malaria meds for 2 weeks now and no nightmares. That doesn’t mean I don’t have other odd (medicinally induced?) dreams. I had an odd one last night where a whole group of Jesuits perfomed a musical Eucharistic prayer included with a jazz handed consecration. Perhaps I am spending too much time in church, eh? Inculturation on broadway….